On January 19, 2012, Punk legend Ted Leo made a guest appearance at The Rejection Show at Littlefield in Brooklyn. The concept of The Rejection Show is pure genius – comedians and singers finally get a chance to play material in front of a live audience that has been cut from their act. Occasionally, the cut material deals with rejection too, which just adds to the hilarity of the program. This was my first experience at The Rejection Show and I definitely want to go back. Some of the rejected ideas and concepts presented were side-splittingly funny like a fake band idea called “Banter,” where the band didn’t play songs on stage, but instead they just told preposterous stories to the crowd instead of playing songs.

Ted Leo

Ted Leo joined in on the fun to perform songs from his unreleased musical about the Banana Trade. The musical was in pre-production when its producer disappeared and never got in touch with Ted Leo again, save for a cryptic email that Leo received several years later. The original version of Ted Leo’s track “Bomb.Repeat.Bomb” was supposed to be in the musical, but when the concept got scrapped, Ted Leo repurposed the song for his album “Living With The Living.” It was a great night of music, laughter and comedy so I recommend checking out The Rejection Show.